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Transpiration of Dominant Tree Species Varies in Response to Projected Changes in Climate: Implications for Composition and Water Balance of Temperate Forest Ecosystems

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Abstract

The climate is changing in many temperate forests with winter snowpack shrinking and an increasing frequency of growing season air temperatures exceeding long-term means. We examined the effects of these changes on growing season rates of transpiration (sap flow) in two snow removal experiments in New Hampshire and Massachusetts, USA. Snow was removed during early winter, resulting in greater depth and duration of soil freezing compared to untreated plots. We examined the dominant tree species at each site, Acer saccharum at Hubbard Brook, NH and Acer rubrum and Quercus rubra at Harvard Forest, MA. Trees responded to a smaller snowpack, but with distinct species-specific responses consistent with ecological traits. Snow removal decreased rates of sap flow per kPa vapor pressure deficit (VPD) in sugar maples in the early growing season and red maples throughout the growing season. In contrast, sap flow rates per kPa VPD increased for red oak with snow removal. Downscaled climate projections from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project indicate increases in heat stress days at both sites by the end of the century, leading to increased rates of whole-season transpiration across all three tree species, which will be offset in red maples and increased in red oaks with a smaller snowpack and increased frequency of heat stress days. Results of this study demonstrate that the combined effects of changes in climate during the growing season and winter will impact transpiration differently among tree species, with implications for forest water balance and tree species composition in the northeastern USA

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Acknowledgements

We thank John Bennink, Christine Bollig, Justin Brigham, John Campbell, Keita DeCarlo, C.J. Freeman, Meghan Gagne, Ian Halm, Glenn Harrington, Michael Mangiante, Jeff Merriam, Julianne Richard, Matthew Ross, Lindsay Scott, Patrick Sorensen, Bethel Steele, and Phil Thompson for their assistance in the laboratory and field. We thank Ian Halm at Hubbard Brook and Audrey Barker-Plotkin and Mark VanScoy at Harvard Forest for their support at each site, respectively. Sap flow conversions were done using BaseLiner, developed by Ram Oren’s C–H2O Ecology Lab Group at the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University. Software development of BaseLiner was supported by the Biological and Environmental Research Program (BER), the US Department of Energy through the Southeast Regional Center (SERC) of the National Institute for Global Environmental Change (NIGEC), and through the Terrestrial Carbon Process Program (TCP). Research was supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Northeastern States Research Cooperative, a joint program of the University of Vermont, the University of Maine and the United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service, Northern Research Station. This research was also supported by NSF DEB Grants 1149929 and NSF Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) Grants to Hubbard Brook (Directorate for Biological Sciences) (NSF 1114804 and 1637685). This manuscript is a contribution of the Hubbard Brook Ecosystem Study. The Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest is operated and maintained by the USDA Forest Service, Northern Research Station, Newtown Square, PA.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biology, Boston University, 5 Cummington Mall, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

    Jamie L. Harrison, Anne Socci Maloney, Stephanie M. Juice & Pamela H. Templer

  2. Environmental Sciences Initiative, CUNY Advanced Science Research Center, Department of Geography and Environmental Science, Hunter College, Graduate Programs in Earth and Environmental Science and Biology, The Graduate Center, CUNY, New York, NY, USA

    Andrew B. Reinmann

  3. Department of Earth and Environment, Boston University, 685 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

    Nathan Phillips

  4. Institute of Arctic Biology, University of Alaska, Fairbanks, Fairbanks, Alaska, USA

    Alex J. Webster

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  1. Jamie L. Harrison
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Correspondence to Pamela H. Templer.

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PHT, ASM, SMJ, ABR, and NP conceived of and designed the study; ABR, ASM, SMJ, and AJW performed research; PHT and JLH analyzed the data; PHT, JLH, and ABR led the writing of the manuscript. All authors contributed to writing and editing of the manuscript.

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Harrison, J.L., Reinmann, A.B., Maloney, A.S. et al. Transpiration of Dominant Tree Species Varies in Response to Projected Changes in Climate: Implications for Composition and Water Balance of Temperate Forest Ecosystems. Ecosystems 23, 1598–1613 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10021-020-00490-y

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